Tag Archives: Odd Guitars

So, AxVault.com has featured my guitar collection. How cool is that? I’m honored & proud to have been selected to be a featured collection! Of course, I dig anything that encourages me to buy more goofy guitars.

Like this:

So, I’ve been really bad at blogging lately. It’s not that I don’t have anything to blog about, it’s mostly that I’m not finding much time to do it. I did have someone recently contact me with a complaint thinking I’m some entity… not sure who they thought. I wrote back to no avail. I think it was a dud. I may try again to get a response, maybe I’ll even post something.

Mainly, it’s because of a new job. I’m not tied to a desk with a few spare minutes or even with lunch time at the desk. Now, I’m on the road & in the field all day. When I get home, I don’t seem to gravitate right to blogging or my news feed.

I never did finish my New York Pro guitar… well, I did route out the pickguard with a Dremel set that my mom gave me, and eventually got the neck plate off, but I had my guitar guy put it all back together. If you need work done in the Pittsburgh area, let me know and I’ll send you to the right cat for repairs, setups, and even guitar insanity which is generally all I ever have for him (e.g. the Batman logo guitar went from goofy to absolutely playable in his hands). It looks ridiculous, plays like a dream, and screams through the amplifier like you wouldn’t believe. GFS pickups rule.

Like this:

This is my new Tetris. (Thankfully I’ve never had a phone cool enough to play Angry Birds.) Online guitar builders are popping up like mad, and now there’s a contest for making the ugliest one over at Joe Gore’s Tone Fiend blog:

Go try your luck at making the worst! There is some serious competition over there. Sadly, I like some of the “bad” color schemes. I guess I do like goofy guitars after all. (You may remember the mutant beauty pageant.)

I still haven’t seen a virtual guitar builder that can do this though. I did a Google image search for ‘Tetris Guitar’ and came up short. This was the next best thing. It would be cool if it still worked to play video games. Really though, $190 is a very reasonable price. If I had $200 to spare, I’d get one of these.

I do have to say… I don’t get why the Prince guitar is for repugnant individuals. I guess if you’re not Prince, it is a goofy axe to sling. I am glad that the boring Washburn/Jackson/Ibanez shape is all the way on the left though. I just can’t get behind them. I’m not sure why the oh-so-common Les Paul and Stratocaster shapes convey any level of trustworthiness of the player. Perhaps I’m over-thinking. This is quite amusing nonetheless.

Like this:

Now, that’s a hell of a guitar. It’s made from guitar parts (obviously) and an old toy Millennium Falcon. It’s even got Han & Chewie action figures inside. How insane is that? Despite the plastic-laden sound that it gives off (you can hear it in the video below), I’d love to have something like this, just for the sheer oddity and geekiness. Can you imagine rolling up to a show, and pulling that out of a case on stage? People wouldn’t know what to think. (Unless you were in the Phenomenauts and they’d already seen your van.)

Urlesque has a cool initial interview and a nice follow-up about the guitar and the process that Stevens used to put it all together. Oddity Central has a good article too. I’d love to see how much this goes for when it sells. Sadly, probably more than I can afford to drop on a guitar right now… but maybe I’ll hit up some toy shows & build my own. Ha ha.

Like this:

I like guitars. I blog about a bunch of stuff, but I can’t believe I neglected adding a guitar category before now. Perhaps because I’m back to rocking out again, I’ve been more aware of guitars and music in general.

I have always loved music from an early age, and the guitar has always been my favorite instrument. Of course I wanted to learn how to play. I took a class in school because I needed 2 music electives one year. We did the Mel Bay “Marry Had a Little Lamb” crap and I skimmed through only sort-of learning to read music while I bought guitar magazines and learned my favorite riffs by tab at home or from the kids in the guitar class who already knew how to play & were taking it for an easy A.

I was also learning at church camp… the minister in charge used to play campfire standards & hymns for the sing-alongs, and taught me how to play chords to a whole song instead of the riffs that I was used to half-assedly piecing together. I think through this is where I first felt comfortable singing & playing at the same time. I remember that being a huge obstacle at one point, but now it almost seems ridiculous.

I took lessons at a music store for a while, and it was cool… but basically I learned 1 scale and how to play by ear. It wasn’t very structured, and I wasn’t a great student. I just wanted to rock… not learn.

Around the same time, I re-discovered punk rock. I had always been a fan of pop rock, punk rock, metal, & more… but when I learned that I could pop in the Misfits or Ramones and play along to the whole record, something just clicked. I fell into a three-chord way of life… and discovered that I didn’t need to be a great guitar player. Sure, there’s always room to improve, but I’m not trying to be Yngwie Malmsteen or Jimi Hendrix or anything.

With the punk re-awakening that I had, I wanted to write songs and be in a band. Playing the guitar was the means to that end. Luckily this was happening at the same time for me as some other good friends & eventually AiXeLsyD was born. I’ve played on & off in a handful of bands & projects since then and been part of a few different scenes. I’m very thankful for being introduced all the people that I’ve met through those endeavors. There’s a weird bond with other people in bands that you just don’t get if you’re not part of the whole thing. It’s like a weird brotherhood or religion or secret club… even within that I guess there are still more than a few who still don’t get it once they’re in it, but that’s a whole other blog.

This went a different direction than I intended, but you’ll have that. Maybe I’ll blog more about the band experience… I’ve had a few standard rants about bands over the years that I’ll have to rehash here.

My original intent was just to say that I was going to start blogging about guitars. I love guitars. I like to play all kinds, I’d love to own them all. I like normal guitars, but I gravitate toward the weird ones. I’ll blog about all of them here. Hopefully it’ll spark some discussions, awe, and ire.